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Alec Karakatsanis

@equalityAlec

9 Jul

@HoustonChron

The media is fabricating a new racist hysteria about crime and then falsely linking that fear-mongering to the most minor efforts to make the punishment bureaucracy less barbaric. Today, the @HoustonChron published what might be the single worst piece of journalism yet. (1)

I will not link to the piece, but two reporters worked with the DA and the cops to write an article blaming murders on vague "bail reform." Please understand: the thesis of the article is refuted by all of the overwhelming empirical evidence. The article is a total sham. (2)

Every rigorous academic examination shows that rampant pretrial human caging and family separation that results from this country's shameful use of cash bail leads to *more future harm.* But the authors suggest that releasing presumed innocent people leads to more "crime." (3)

Read 6 tweets

Alec Karakatsanis

@equalityAlec

8 Jul

Thread. This is the story of Tracy, who was arrested for vandalizing her boyfriend's car. She couldn't pay a few hundred dollars cash bail that the judge required for her release. A few days later she died in a Houston jail cell. (1)

In Tracy's case, the judge required a total of $3,000 in cash bail. Tracy was sick and wasn't even brought to her own bail hearing. Based on prevailing profit rates in the Texas bail industry, she could have been free had she been able to pay a private company $300. (2)

Two days later, one of the other women in her bunk found Tracy hanging from a sheet. She was pronounced dead two days after that. (3)

Read 9 tweets

Alec Karakatsanis

@equalityAlec

6 Jul

Thread. Have you ever heard of "civil asset forfeiture"? You're never going to think about the police the same way again. (1)

A few years ago, when I was at the public defender's office, my very poor clients kept telling me the same story: they would be walking down the street and DC police would stop them, search them at gunpoint, tell them to open their wallets, and take all the cash they had. (2)

The wildest part? The DC police would then send them a letter saying that, if they wanted to challenge the police taking of their cash, they would need to pay either $250 or 10% of the amount taken, whichever was more! (3)

Read 13 tweets

Alec Karakatsanis

@equalityAlec

5 Jul

Thread. This is a story you won't hear on the news, but it's as important as anything you will read. Here is the story of one man who got lost in jail, and it says a great deal about our society. (1)

The man was arrested by sheriffs in Houston for possession of meth. He was kept in a cage before any legal proceedings unless he could pay a predetermined amount of cash--a problem across Texas. He was too poor to pay, so he stayed in jail. (2)

Court records show that cops, prosecutors, and judges knew that he had “been determined to have a mental illness or to be a person with an intellectual disability by the local mental health authority.” (3)

Read 13 tweets

Alec Karakatsanis

@equalityAlec

5 Jul

A giant scandal: We now know that, as local governments around Miami gorged police departments with cash for drug enforcement, wasteful overtime, low-level crimes of poverty, and military equipment, they basically ignored building safety laws. nytimes.com/2021/07/04/us/…

The perversion of our safety priorities by corrupt cops and prosecutors is a national epidemic. Did you know that there are about 100,000 significant violations of the Clean Water Act each year, resulting in rotting teeth, cancer, kidney failure, and damage to the nervous system?

Tens of millions of people are exposed to dangerous chemicals in drinking water due to these crimes. Prosecutors and state/federal officials who call themselves "law enforcement" choose simply to ignore the vast majority of these corporate pollution crimes.

Read 6 tweets

Alec Karakatsanis

@equalityAlec

30 Jun

THREAD: While investigating a jail, I met a Black teenager who was taken from the street by armed government agents, put in metal chains, and kept in a cage b/c he couldn’t pay a ticket a cop gave him for “sagging his pants.” This is what's “normal” in the “justice system.” (1)

A reasonable person may view what the cops did as a violent kidnapping. It felt that way to the child's family. But in our society, it actually counts as a "crime" committed *by the child* that cops report to the media as part of a "crime surge" in "high-crime neighborhoods." (2)

When the jail guards worked with the prosecutor and judge to keep the child in a cage unless his family paid a "cash bond," none of those "law enforcement" cared to enforce the U.S. Constitution to help the child. He was never compensated, and no one was held accountable. (3)

Read 6 tweets

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